Joe Blackburn Has Played Them All

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Framed, autographed pictures are lined up side-by-side along the top of a wall. Strong, proud faces smile inside the frames. The faces belong to champions. Legends. Champions clutching prized pool cues. Legends leaning over green-felt tables, banking home balls, unloading yet another mad, crazy trick shot.

The pictures belong to Joe Blackburn.

They’re a testament to his life. Proof of greatness. Proof of believe-it-or-not meetings and believe-it-or-not stories. Proof that the faces of champions and legends sometimes end up in framed, autographed pictures. And sometimes they end up alive, working, living with family, staying near friends and settling down in a small town.

“I’ve played all the people on that wall,” Blackburn, 64, said. “Played every one of ‘em. Most of ‘em are friends. … I know ‘em all; played ‘em all. Worked on their cues.”

Blackburn is a pool cue repairman now. He runs a small shop in the left-hand corner of Pete & Darrell’s Corner Pocket Billiards room, shaving shafts, repairing tips, applying exotic leather wraps and keeping things cool and low-key.

But there was a time when Blackburn traveled the country solo, dueling against the best of the best in dark, forbidden halls. Years when he shot, bet and gambled against names that still ring out. And there was an era when Blackburn’s life consisted of nothing more than pool halls and the game the halls breathed.

Blackburn set up against Buddy Hall. He shot nine-ball with Minnesota Fats. He eyed corners and dreamed-up bank shots while Earl Strickland, Nick Varner, Alan Hopkins, Boston Shorty and Mike Sigel watched his moves.

The bank shots, corner shots and breaks against the greats are in the past for Blackburn now. But his dust-covered, framed pictures are proof of the life he once lived. And it’s a life still based around the best game he ever lucked into: pool.

First Shot

Blackburn’s mother would have killed him: He was playing pool.

Blackburn started with snooker, a cue-based sport played on a four-pocket table.

It was 1964, and Blackburn was a small-town, straight-out-of-high-school kid serving in France with the United States Air Force.

Snooker caught his eye.

Pool held his stare.

Blackburn learned and played the game on tables set inside barracks. And he learned fast.

“Always had a good eye; good hand-eye [coordination]. I played well,” Blackburn said.

By 1966, Blackburn was in the middle of the Vietnam War, working as a chief loadmaster on a C-130. He flew to the Philippines, Korea, Taiwan and Bangkok, among others.

Pool was a reprieve. An escape. And it became his game. Mastering shots and studying the layouts of tables, Blackburn could focus, shoot and forget.

A Cruel Game

Blackburn left the military after his enlistment expired and returned to the states with a sharp, new asset.

He was a pool player. A good one. But he wanted to become great.

Soon, Blackburn was a traveling player. Nine-ball was his game. He kept learning, picking up what he could when it was offered. And he kept shooting.

“I [traveled] around,” Blackburn said. “Not so much past the Mississippi River. Mostly East Coast. Played pool and gambled.”

After-hours gambling brought in good money when Blackburn shot straight. Fifty-dollar games played the right way meant big dough.

“Sometimes we made more money gambling than we did actually playing,” Blackburn said.

In 1978, Blackburn joined the pro tour. His run lasted until 1986.

The tour and the life were a thrill. But Blackburn was often humbled. Hot streaks, raw talent and countless hours of practice were run-of-the-mill in his new world. One bad shot equaled a lost game. One lost game equaled not making expenses.

“You make one mistake, you probably lose,” Blackburn said. “Pool is such a cruel game. All [other] sports you play … you get your turn. … But in pool, you just run out and run out and run out. I mean … say you play a race to 11 – you may not shoot. It’s brutal.”

According to Blackburn, concentration was the key. He knew he had the talent to compete – Blackburn matched shots and skill with the legends, no problem. But unforgiving tables and hard-to-find money slowly wore him out.

“You know you can play,” Blackburn said. “You know you can do the same thing they do. But … sometimes you don’t get that chance.

“It’s being able to bring it when you have to. That’s where it all ends, right there. When the pressure is on, the great players make the shots and the lesser players don’t.”

‘I’ll Never Forget This’

Blackburn sees pool as a game that arcs and dives. The cues, tables and balls largely remain the same. The public’s fascination with pool doesn’t.

“It comes and goes,” Blackburn said.

Blackburn recalls the 1940s and 50s as the peak of the game.

And there is no bigger name from that era than Rudolf Walter Wanderone, Jr.

Wanderone’s better-known name: Minnesota Fats.

“Minnesota was kind of a legend in his own mind,” Blackburn said. “He was a trip. He was so funny. He was a very interesting person. He … liked to brag and talk. But he backed a lot of it up, also.”

Blackburn faced Fats twice. Fats took the first meeting; Blackburn won the second.

An exhibition match between the two in Pontiac, Mich., in 1977 still makes Blackburn shine with light.

Blackburn found Fats in a shopping mall. Fats was giving an exhibition to benefit Muscular Dystrophy research. A crowd of people encouraged Blackburn to take on the living legend.

Blackburn resisted, then caved.

He put his money down and picked up a cue.

Blackburn estimated he ran four to five solid balls. Then he got in a bind and missed.

Fats grabbed the spotlight like a showman.

“[Fats] says – I’ll never forget this as long as I live – he says, ‘You can go sit down now, sonny. I’m putting on the exhibition,’” Blackburn said.

While Blackburn steamed and his once-proud face lit up red, Fats ran the table.

The hustler was in control.

“It was humbling, believe me,” Blackburn said smiling. “[My friends] kidded me about that for the [next] two weeks.”

A New Home

Blackburn fathered a son in 1988. The event came two years after Blackburn exited the pro tour. His life was changing. So was his job.

Blackburn said he started repairing pool cues out of necessity. When Blackburn was young and money was short, the smart move was for him to learn how to fix his own gear.

Word of his sure-handed work got around. Soon, Blackburn was repairing cues for friends.

“I wasn’t even charging them,” Blackburn said.

The upcoming United States Open Nine-Ball Championship, held Oct. 19-25 in Chesapeake, Va., will mark the 25th straight year Blackburn has served as the tournament’s pool cue repairman.

What began as a money-saving hobby has now turned into a trademark for Blackburn.

He receives mail-order cues from all over the world. He repairs and hones sticks for people throughout the regional Tri-Cities community. And his name is passed around and traded among professionals, many of whose faces now line the walls of his business.

“He’s a good draw. He’s a gentleman. And he’s funnier than a monkey,” said Darrell Evans Neece, part-owner of Pete & Darrell’s Corner Pocket Billiards. “He’s the best cue repairman in the business. He draws people in. He probably [doesn’t] brag a lot, but I’ve got books somewhere around here of him playing Earl Strickland. He’s been around.”

Blackburn faced and at times beat the best pool players in the country 30 years ago. Now, working and hidden inside a small, four-walled room in Pete & Darrell’s, surrounded by cues, tips and 18 pool tables, Blackburn has found a new home in Bristol.

“I’m never going to be rich,” Blackburn said. “[But] I’m like a junk dealer: I won’t never be broke. Know what I mean?”

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Joe Blackburn Bio
Age: 64
Resides: Bristol, Tenn.
Job: Pool cue repairman at Pete & Darrell’s Corner Pocket Billiards
Experience: Worked the United States Open Nine-Ball Championship since 1985; played on the professional pool tour from 1978-86.
Big name: Blackburn played pool hall-legend Minnesota Fats twice in exhibition play. He beat Fats the second time.
More names: Blackburn competed against pool greats Earl Strickland, Nick Varner, Alan Hopkins, Boston Shorty and Mike Sigel, among others.
Odd fact: Blackburn named stingray as the oddest and toughest skin he’s ever been asked to attach to a cue.
On the Web: http://www.usopen9ballchampionships.com